On the 16th of April 2025, Julie Hare reported in the Australian Financial Review that Western Sydney University is planning to cut 400 staff to stave off a projected $80 million deficit. In response, student advocates formed the ‘Stop WSU Cuts’ group on the 17th of April 2025. Stop WSU Cuts will campaign to save University staff jobs and demands that education be put before the profits of the University bosses.
We are currently running a petition with over 350 signatures to save Western staff roles and say no to the 400 job cuts. Students are outraged at these attacks.
“Education is a human right; we are paying for a quality education. It’s WSU’s job to supply that, not to increase their already large profits.” writes Bachelor of Occupational Therapy student, Julia Disney. “Lord knows how burnt-out our uni staff are. My heart already goes out to them and how hard they work. Last thing they need is to be even more understaffed. ”
Here’s what we know
Hundreds of staff are going to be sacked in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. The official number is 300-400, which is 15% of Western’s entire workforce. As reported by Hare, Western’s National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch president David Burchell said that these cuts are the “largest projected cuts in the university’s history”. The timeline outlined for these cuts is 2026, however, Western management have already made a call out for staff to elect for voluntary redundancies.
Western history student Gina Elias is concerned about the impact this will have on all staff:
‘I’m a history student and my tutor is already overworked! She is both the lecturer for our whole cohort and a tutor. Our classes merged from two into one big class! I can’t imagine how overworked she’ll get with 400 staff cuts’.
It has not yet been disclosed which departments will be impacted, or which programs these cuts will affect. What Stop WSU Cuts does know is that sweeping staff sackings usually lead to massive attacks on student’s degrees. In 2021, Honi Soit’s Claire Ollivain reported on Macquarie University’s announcement of 300 staff cuts. Macquarie students now face the abolition of more than 11 majors from undergraduate and postgraduate programs in 2026.
Vice Chancellor George Williams’ justification for pulling the livelihoods out from under hundreds of workers during a housing crisis is that the University’s “worsening budget position means that Western will have insufficient revenue to cover our 2026 salary and other costs”. Williams blamed the projected $79 million deficit on slowing student enrolments and international student caps. Burchell refuted this by stating ‘There’s no need for any job cuts at WSU… Student enrolments overall are stable. The real deficit is trivial’.
Staff and students should not have to pay the price for the University’s financial mismanagement by losing their jobs and the quality of their education.
Our universities should not be run like businesses where the interests of staff and students are subordinated to whatever makes the most profits. Williams has written several articles since he became Vice Chancellor in 2024 which try to paint the image that he shares this view. In his opinion-piece ‘A university, not a corporation’, Williams writes “universities are public institutions…The focus must be on the public good, not just the bottom line”.
But one look at the WSU Strategic Plan for 2025-2030, devised by Williams and Western Chancellor Jennifer Westacott, former chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, tells a very different story. Some of the key measures of success outlined in the plan are to “Grow total revenue, ensure a sustainable surplus to cover major investments, achieve a surplus from teaching activities… [and] generate significant investment returns”. The plan proposes “rigorous budget allocation aligned to strategic priorities,” such as “establish[ing] successful offshore campuses… [and] increas[ing] enrolments from priority international markets”.
Williams claims the university has “no choice”, and he feels “heavy responsibility” for the “real impact on people’s lives”. However, cuts are being made so University management can spend less money on staff, students and education, and pour more money into their profit-making investments, such as the upcoming construction of a state-of-the-art campus in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. Not to mention the University’s executive salaries. George Williams earns more than the Prime Minister, raking in $800,000 a year, on top of 15 Western executives who earn over $415,000.
Western Bachelor of Architectual Design student Daniel Van Vree wrote, ‘I think it’s terrible that the uni is cutting staff, especially since teaching and admin staff are already so over stretched. I’ve studied at Western for nearly two years now and have seen the dedication and genuine care staff have for their jobs and our education. I study architecture, and we have weekly studio sessions that go from 10am to 5pm and almost every week tutors stay back and help us work through our assignments. To think that these are the people that could be losing their jobs while there are executive staff at this uni who get more than the NSW premier disgusts me’.
Students should oppose these cuts because staff make the university run, and we refuse to have them sacrificed to bolster the University’s business model. We know that staff working conditions equal students’ learning conditions. We need to stand together to defend attacks on our education!
Stop WSU Cuts held a protest at the Parramatta South campus on May 22nd, 2025, at 1 PM outside EJa (Student Hub). We always need help handing out leaflets and putting up posters around campus for future protests. If you are keen to get involved in the campaign, you can get in touch via our Instagram @stop_wsu_cuts.
